The Election Commission of Pakistan which had earlier banned the process of gaining votes on the basis of religion, sect, and or by bribing someone, has today released the list of penalties associated with it. According to ECP, there would be a three year jail term for whoever found guilty of trying to gain votes on the basis of religion. Also, there is a similar jail term for those found guilty of bribing people to gain their votes.

This unprecedented decision of ECP has received both praise and criticism from different circles of the country. Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, the chief of JUI-F, has termed this move of the ECP as tantamount to driving the country towards secularism. He lambasted this decision and argued that Pakistan’s very existence was based on Islam and if Election Commission stops us from gaining votes on the basis of religion then it’s the negation of the Ideology of Pakistan.

On the other hand, the protagonists of this decision say that ECP is not trying to secularize the country but the true intent is to stop misuse of religion for political purposes. No one should be allowed to play with religious sentiments of the masses in order to coax them into voting for someone. It has been observed that different political factions pressurize people by using Islam as a tool to imply that if the people did not vote for them, they are going to hell. Thus, they put a psychological pressure on them to gain their votes.

They take the example of “Islam Zindabad Rally” where people are tricked into participating in a seemingly religious rally which in reality is a typical political jalsa of a political party. In order to attract more audience, people are asked to take part in this rally for Islam and when they do, they are exposed to the political agenda of that party. They say that Pakistan is an Islamic country and there are boundaries defined according to Islamic injunctions which no one can bypass. So no one should be allowed to claim that he is more Muslim than his opponent.

However, it remains to be seen whether ECP is able to enforce this decision or not. The ground realities of the country are totally different and convicting someone for trying to persuade people to vote on the basis of religion is a daunting task to achieve.